Basic Saturday #3

I discovered Armand Van Helden for myself by complete accident a few months ago, a fortuitous download from a compilation list of influences to a certain DJ Sta, (if you don't know him meet him here). Since 1988 Armand Van Helden has been making great, face-melting music for club rats and dance freaks all over the world.

Van Helden is a non-smoking, apparent workaholic partier whose bed-time is 5AM. He's reached a level that few can claim to have achieved in the music world, and done it without selling himself to the mainstream, unwilling to box in his style, tastes, or attitudes. Own terms, own rules, own music, something for everyone, even the little kids. From the DJ Times (2005): “I’m a producer looked at as an artist, which is the weirdest thing to this day for me,” he says. “I never considered myself an artist.”

I started back from Killing Puritans, his 2000 album release, the very title of which is suggestive of the man behind the cover art. A solid millennial album I knew nothing about until now. It kicks, you see the genius between the eclectic vocal sampling, solid beats, and gritty edge he puts to his tracks. Producer, artist, or something altogether his own, from here and now and then, his work only gets better and remains the way he seems to have intended it: present, unafraid to stand out without saying so, and not mainstream flashes in the cosmic pan of pop culture, the kind of stardom easily lost and forgotten.

Word.

You Don't Know Me (ft. Duane Harden) [Radio Edit] (1999)
Breakdancers Call - Killing Puritans (2000)
Playing House - Ghettoblaster (2007)
I Want Your Soul (Fake Blood Remix)

and courtesy of kissatlanta:
NYC Beat